Life-After

by J. A. Laraque

  “What are you accusing me of?” I asked.

  “David, listen to me.” Lola said. “You are not just in a cell. You are in a containment chamber. When you arrived and we conducted tests on you, we found something. At the time we weren’t sure exactly what it was so we took a sample and ran further tests.”

  I knew whatever they had discovered it was not good. I could clearly hear it in her voice. The room I was in made even more sense when she told me what it was. I did not know if she lied about the radiation, but it was almost certain that something was done to me. Jonathan’s suspicion also began to make sense. The Asher may not have killed me because it needed me.

  “What we found was interesting to say the least.” Doctor Flag began. “You want to know how I am alive and I know you want to know why I am here so I will tell you. However, first you need to understand what you are and what those like you have meant to the study of life science.

  Before the Global war began a team of scientists gained access to a man who could recover from what would normally be fatal injuries. This man was discovered near what was formerly China. My father, Nathan Flag, worked with the team of scientists to discover why this man had such abilities. It was a joint effort between multiple countries. Twelve scientists in all were part of the team.

  The man did not know where he came from. He claimed he was orphaned and was raised in Korea. They were able to learn his ability was written into his DNA and it affected his cells however, it was unlike any sequence the scientists had ever seen. While he was human there were parts of his DNA structure that they could not identify. The scientists considered them alien since they were not part of any known pair we had seen at the time.

  Originally this man was willing to have them run tests on him, but after several months he wanted to be released. By then there was not much more that they had learned. Unfortunately, during this time talks broke down between some of the countries and war was on the horizon. Once the Alliance and Federations were formed my father was ordered to take any samples and research and return home.

  The plan was to kill the subject codenamed, Alpha and destroy all the research leaving only my father’s. What was unknown at the time was that the alliance government was compromised and that information was passed on to an enemy agent. In the end all the scientists along with Subject Alpha and the research and samples were destroyed.

  At the time I was working for the newly created division dealing with scientific exploration codenamed, Factor Twelve. My father and I were not on speaking terms, but when I heard of his death I began looking through the letters and packages he had sent to me. Among them were copies of his research and various samples. I soon discovered he was keeping information from the government. He discovered what gave Subject Alpha his abilities. It was the same thing that allowed me to give you your temporary abilities, David, life energy.”

  I was nothing but a test subject to them. The way Flag spoke, chronicling the events that led to something I had fought to forget. I should have realized Flag would not have just run random experiments on me, he knew exactly what he was doing. There were still many unanswered questions, but Flag was just getting started.

  “I, unlike my father, was loyal to the government and turned over all the information my father had sent me.” Flag continued. “They allowed me to hand pick a team to continue the research. Over the following years we conducted experiments and discovered a way to identify people with the potential to develop abilities. We knew all humans had this life energy within them, but it would lay dormant just as it did within your body, David.

  However, there were more people that were special, their DNA would eventually allow them to awaken their life energy and grant them abilities and thus our study had a name, The Awakened Project.”

  While it was not clear exactly what Luis did or did not know about The Awakened Project it was clear he knew something. When he told me about the project I wondered if someone had continued Flag’s work, I never thought it was Flag himself. What I wanted to know is why I was chosen to be experimented on and what exactly did he do to me. I wanted to know if he had tracked my progress and if so why he never did anything to help me when my abilities faded.

  “I know you are wondering how you fit into all this, David.” Flag said. “Prior to the Awakened Project while we were looking for more test subjects we discovered Subject Alpha was originally born in your home country. We asked the Alliance military to go there and use our testing process to see if perhaps your people all possessed the same DNA markers as Subject Alpha. Sadly your people resisted and many test subjects were lost, even more unfortunate we discovered there was nothing special about your people sans one family.

  We ran tests on the remains of your grandparents, David, and found they had the same DNA structure as Subject Alpha. While your grandparents and Subject Alpha were not related we wanted to see if your grandparent’s offspring would carry the differences in their DNA. It took some time to discover who they were as many of the records were destroyed. By the time we found them they had fled the country and we assumed killed during the war.

  That was until the incident at the Factor Twelve research station in Naxum Mountain. We had collected samples from five other subjects we had discovered around the globe who possessed the same DNA markers. Our research was sabotaged and all the data there was lost. The only good that came from that incident was the saboteur was captured and that was when we discovered the Federation had been conducting their own Awakened Project and it began with two test subjects. A man and a woman, Martha and Alexander, but their last name was Chase.”

  Any resolve that remained within me at the moment broke apart. I fell to my knees not once doubting what Flag had told me. Chase was my mother’s maiden name. It was changed to Zavior when she married my father. They abandoned me because they knew the Alliance was looking for them, but to flee one enemy into the hands of another did not make any sense. For so long they were branded as traitors just for leaving and what Flag was telling me was that they defected to the Federation to become test subjects.

  “I can hear your reaction, David.” Flag continued. “Let me put your mind at ease, they did not defect, they were captured while fleeing. The agent the Alliance captured gave us detailed information. Your mother and father fought against the Federation and even tried to escape and destroy the research. They died trying to alert the Alliance to their location, sadly we never received anything.

  What we did learn was that the Federation were years behind the Alliance and redoubled our efforts to find the X-factor of the Awakening process. I personally looked into your parents and discovered your mother’s maiden name and then found you. We watched you while at the campus and waited to see if anything would manifest on its own. The Alliance did not want to experiment on you as a child, but when you collapsed during your boxing match you were brought to Alpha Medical, to me.

  I had to approach you the way I did because most of the personal at Alpha Medical did not know about my work. However, we did inform you headmaster and your coach of the procedure. It was their job to watch over you once it was completed.”

  To listen to someone talk about you as if you were nothing more than a lab rat was demeaning to say the least. He had no compassion in his voice, almost no emotion at all. It was as if he was reading from a text book account of his records. My own coach and headmaster had lied to me, they did not care about me or my wellbeing they just watched their experiment unfold on government orders.

  I should have known better back then. Once I returned to the campus tried as I did there were times it was apparent I was dominating any physical events. There had been testing done for performance enhancing drugs and I never once was brought in. Rethinking on that time I realized they protected me from investigation from both internal and external sources. My whole time at the campus was nothing but a controlled testing environment.

  “We tried something different with you, David.” Flag continued. “What I
told you that night was true and for a time it worked as we expected, but sadly the effects were limited and by then we had test subjects that were more expendable and so we decided to allow you to continue on with the loss of your abilities and monitor your progress.

  Even when you ran from the campus and traveled before joining the alliance military we had been tracking you. Implanted within your body was a special beacon secondary to the one placed within you when you joined the military. The beacon also gathered data on various vital statistics and would send them to us whenever you were near a data transmission node. Originally no one was told of your condition when you began basic training, but when you began to excel and were noticed by Alpha Factor we wanted to inform your commanding officer of the project.”

  The only comfort I could take in Flag’s words was that he did not mention Sara or Clara. It would have been too much to bear if he had told me they were part of the project. Jonathan and Lola knew about it and went along and I was too stupid to notice. Not once did I believe they were lying to me, befriending me because they were ordered to. I did not want to hear anymore, but my mind would not allow me to ask him to stop.

  “At that point we were done with you, David.” Flag continued. “We had other subjects to conduct our tests on and with the war coming to an end the rush to enhance our soldiers was lessened. Jonathan and Lola were watching over you and you performed admirably in your duties to the alliance military and later at Naxum Research. Everything was moving at a pace that was acceptable to me and my team that was until a few weeks before the meteors hit.

  We were nowhere closer to discovering a way to permanently awaken the life energy within a human being and then one day something began to happen to all our test subjects. Their change was different than yours, every one of their cells were surrounded with an aura of energy. It could only be seen under a specific microscope on a specific spectrum, but it was clearly there. We could not explain it, there was nothing we had done to have such a change, but that was not the strangest part.

  The subjects did not develop any abilities in fact they became comatose. We ran tests on them and found that each had a tumor like growth at the base of their brain stem. After further tests we realized the subjects were experiencing some sort of dream. The patterns were similar to those you would see from a person in R.E.M sleep.

  A few days before the meteors were detected the aura expanded out from the subjects covering their entire body. Something was changing within them at the cellular level, they were becoming something different. Their body was going through a matter to energy process. Simply put they were turning from physical to energy beings. We placed the subjects in stasis, but it did nothing to stop the process. Two days before the meteors hit the subjects had turned completely to energy and disappeared.

  By then we were looking for answers as to stopping the meteor strike but I also was running scans on the energy to learn all I could. When the meteor was struck by an energy weapon I put two and two together. Our planet while devastated by the meteor shards still had scanning capabilities and so I began running comparisons on the energy blast and the energy the test subjects turned into.

  I wish I could say I was surprised by what I found but by then I was not. The energy signature matched. The blast of energy that shattered the meteor was identical to the test subject’s life energy. I gave my report to the president, it was clear. The change in the human DNA was alien and it was done by our attackers.”

  I believed I had a purpose. I wanted to serve my nation with honor. With my childhood behind me I truly hoped I could carve out a meaningful existence. After the death of Hershel and then Sara the faith I had in achieving my goal was severely weakened, but meeting Clara and building a new future with her put me back on track. When she died, there was only one path, revenge. It was all I had left, the only reason to live.

  Flag took everything away, the pain, the pleasure, the hope. My life did not mean anything. I was nothing but a scientific curiosity to humanity and a weapon to the aliens. I had killed Clara just as if I had guided the meteor to earth myself. Everything was coming together. Answers were leading to fewer questions. My reality became clearer and what I saw was horrifying.

  “I gave myself a task. Find any remaining humans with the DNA markers if there were any.” Flag continued. “I want to know if the energy transformation happened to everyone or just a select few. Over the next few months my search came up empty. I found no other humans with the DNA markers, not until you resurfaced.

  Jonathan and Lola gave me their report and there was no evidence of any change within you. It was a mystery to be sure, but I could not pull you from the front lines to experiment on you no matter how much I begged the resistance government to do so. All I could do is continue with what I had and I watched your every move to see if and when anything would occur.

  After two years I believed I had missed something. Perhaps the aliens had experimented on humans long ago and never knew if their own experiments had worked or not. I originally theorized that the humans with the specific DNA were sleeper agents for the aliens, but with you showing no signs of change that became less of a possibility, that was until a few days ago.”

  A video image appeared on the glass before me. It was a feed of my patrol route from an aerial drone. They had recorded me that night, they had seen everything. I could do nothing but watch everything unfold. The little girl, the Asher attack, but there was something different, something I never knew happened.

  “You should pay attention to this part, David.” Jonathan said coldly. “This is where it gets interesting.”

  The video showed me lying on the ground struggling to move after the blast knocked us apart. The Asher slowly walked over to the girl killing her then made its way to me. My hand was griped on the detonator. Just as I remembered I closed my eyes and was ready to pull the trigger.

  “We had limited resources to track you.” Flag began. “Your implants still functioned, but as allowed I would send drones to capture video of you, specifically when you were alone. This was what we were looking for. You lying helplessly on the ground with the alien ready to kill you, but he did not. At that very moment it became clear why.”

  I watched the video in disbelief as my eyes opened widely and stared directly at the Asher. My hand was still on the trigger but I did not push it, it was as if I was under a trance. In my hypnotic state the Asher began to scan me, something we had never seen them do before. Then he placed his weapon over me just as he did the girl, but instead of a green energy that disintegrated flesh it was a red light that only caused me to close my eyes.

  “We had been monitoring any signals you sent.” Jonathan said. “We did not know if you were a willing or unwilling participant, but either way we not going to leave ourselves open again. Unfortunately, we were not actively monitoring your feed when this occurred. What alerted us was after the Asher hit you with that crimson light.”

  “We had never seen that type of energy before.” Doctor Flag said. “Whatever it did to you caused you to change just as our test subjects did, just at a much slower rate it seems. Did you know when you went into that comatose state you were sending out energy signals from your body? Your implant gave us some very strange readings, many of which we are still working through now, but one thing was clear. Your conciseness left your body and went somewhere else.”

  The video feed vanished and the glass before me changed. I could now see outside my cell. My cell was in the center of the facility several feet higher than ground level. Every person in the area turned to look at me. Jonathan and Lola stood next to Flag who began typing onto a computer console at the base of my containment unit. I could hear a hissing sound and turned to see gas pouring in from the air vent. I could feel my strength slipping away as I fell onto my stomach slowly losing consciousness.

  “Apparently you are special to the aliens and we will find out why, David.” Flag said. “We will learn what they did to you and where your consciou
sness traveled, even if it kills you.”

  12

  The warm sand against my back and legs brought a smile to my face. It was the smell of salty water, the crashing of the waves against the shore, the call of the birds searching for fish that told me I was dreaming. It was not that Flag’s words and the actions of people who I considered friends no longer affected me. It was that I knew that all I had left was this final fantasy and if I could just enjoy it for however long it would last then it would be something I could take with me to the grave.

  The beach stretched out for miles, nothing but golden shimmering sand behind me and crystal clear waters in front of me. I had awakened there as if I went to bed content, happy. When I awoke I let out a gasp. Like awakening from a bad dream, except, I was awakening into a dream and I was okay with that, until.

  “I’m sorry, David.”

  I sat on a clump of sand my hands resting on my knees when I heard her voice. I closed my eyes taking in the sound, absorbing it because I knew this would be the last time I would hear it. She stood behind me, I could feel it. Her presence was strong not static-like the way it was before. There were still questions, but I did not want to ask them.

  “Why, did you forget the beer?” I asked.

  My eyes opened to the shadow that she casted over me. Still unwilling to turn around I wanted to keep in the character I had created. The beach was similar to the one we used to visit when Clara was alive. We would always pack a picnic and it was my job to bring the food and her job to bring the drinks. She always forgot something and would have a sad puppy dog face when she realized it. I would take her in my arms and kiss her passionately letting her know it was okay, I had packed a six-pack just in case.

  “You cannot believe what they have told you, David.” Clara said, the urgency in her voice becoming clearer. “Everything you have experienced is a lie.”